This chapter covers the following topics:
An opportunity is a potential sale. This process begins with the initial customer contact and ends when the sales representative makes or loses the sale.
Sales representatives can manage existing opportunities, assigned to them manually or automatically through Territory Assignment, or they can enter new opportunities.
By default, the sales representative who created the opportunity has full access to the opportunity. Full access to the opportunity means that the sales representative who created the opportunity can add other sales team members, assign sales credits, and rate the likelihood that the opportunity will succeed.
Note: There is Flexfield support for Header and Purchase Item levels for opportunities. If Flexfield functionality has been implemented for an opportunity, the Flexfield name, field, and Flexfield button display.
When you use Oracle Sales Offline in conjunction with Oracle Sales, the following conditions apply:
The Opportunity header date will not trickle down to the forecast date on any purchase item line. Forecast dates will only appear on the purchase lines when a user explicitly enters a date on the line.
All sales credit information for an Opportunity must be added or edited using Oracle Sales.
When a new opportunity is created the user is added as the owner and the remove checkbox for the sales person entry is disabled.
The Opportunity Details form contains a Currency dropdown.
Opportunity Details/Create Opportunity- The Main Details window in Opportunity Details and Create Opportunity contains a Methodology dropdown and a Stage dropdown. Sales Methodology captures your sales group’s best practices to assist in making sales. The Stage feature indicates the current level of the opportunity. In Oracle Sales Offline system administrators can verify if Stage is mapped to a Lead, an Opportunity, or a Lead and Opportunity.
For example, if you select Strategic Selling from the Methodology List of Values (LOVs) in the Opportunity Main Details window the Stage LOV will be populated with the appropriate LOVs such as Stage 1: Prospecting and Stage 2: Qualifying.
If you select a Sales Methodology without choosing a Stage level from the Stage dropdown and attempt to apply/save the Lead or Opportunity, an error message displays.
Forecasting is a quantitative tool used to predict the amount of sales for a specified time period. Managers and sales team members can use forecasting to commit to the amount of sales that they will close by the end of the forecasting period.
Oracle Sales Offline supports forecast information at the Opportunity transaction level. You can add, edit and create Forecast information within an Opportunity in Oracle Sales Offline. The complete Forecasting tool is available in Oracle Sales. You can perform the following functions within Forecasting:
Opportunity Line Level adjustments
You can add a new product line to an opportunity and edit the best, forecast, worst amounts associated with the line. You can also manually edit the best, forecast, worst amounts associated with an existing opportunity line.
Edit Forecast field in Opportunity Header
You can change the Forecast amount in the Opportunity header. This Forecast field in the header sums the opportunity line Forecast amounts. This will overwrite the previous value in this field and the increase/decrease in the amount will be applied proportionately across the Forecast fields in the opportunity lines.
View Forecast Details
You can view Forecast Details (Revenue and Non Revenue Sales Credits) for each Opportunity line.
When you add a new product line in Opportunity Details form the Best, Forecast and Worst fields are empty. When you enter an amount in the Amount field and select Save the Best, Forecast, and Worst amounts will be calculated based upon the setting of the ASN:Forecast Defaulting Type profile option. The opportunity must be in forecastable status.
You can modify existing opportunity product lines in several ways to impact the Best, Forecast, and Worst fields as described in the following table:
| Change | Description |
|---|---|
| Manual Entry | Amounts manually entered in the Best, Forecast, Worst fields will overwrite any values in those fields. Manually entered opportunity line Forecast amounts will be used to recalculate the opportunity header level Forecast field. |
| Changing Amount Field | If you change the Amount field on an opportunity line, the Best, Forecast, and Worst amounts for that line are recalculated. This recalculation overwrites any values currently in these three fields, including amounts that were manually entered. Recalculated opportunity line Forecast amounts will be reflected in the opportunity header level Forecast field |
| Changing Win Probability | If you change the win probability for an opportunity and click from the Main Details tab to the Purchase Lines tab, the opportunity lines will be recalculated. This recalculation overwrites any values currently in these three fields, including amounts that were manually entered. Recalculated opportunity line Forecast amounts will be reflected in the opportunity header level Forecast field. |
| Changing Status | Changes to the opportunity Status will impact the Best, Forecast, and Worst amounts. If the opportunity is in a forecastable status and is changed to a nonforecastable status, the best, forecast, and worst amounts in the opportunity lines are changed to read only and the values are removed. If the opportunity is then changed back to a forecastable status, the best, forecast, worst amounts will be recalculated in the normal manner. Note that the recalculated best, forecast, and worst amounts will overwrite the previous amounts if they were manually entered. |
The Main Details tab of the Opportunity Details and Opportunity Create forms contains an Amount field which is always read only. The Forecast field which is editable, is a summation of all of the Forecast fields in the Opportunity Purchase Lines. You can manually enter an amount in the Forecast Amount field which will impact the Forecast amounts in each Opportunity line. The amount field in the header is read only. You can change the Header Forecast Amount but it impacts the forecast amounts in each opportunity line.
The Forecast field recalculates by changes in the Opportunity lines trickling up to the Opportunity header Forecast field. For example:
Changes in Opportunity lines impacting header Forecast field: You add a new purchase line with a new forecast amount of $200 increasing the Forecast field at the header level by $200. Any changes or deletions to an existing opportunity line has the same effect in the Forecast field at the header level.
Changes in Opportunity header Forecast field impacting Opportunity lines: If you manually enter a value in the Forecast field in the Opportunity header if will overwrite the previous value (if any) in this field.
The change in the header Forecast field will be added/subtracted from each of the Forecast fields in the Opportunity purchase lines in the same manner as is done in Oracle Sales. The amount that is added or subtracted to/from each opportunity purchase line will be calculated based on the proportion of the total header level Forecast amount that each line's Forecast amount represents.
Header Amount field in Opportunity Details window: The Amount field is the sum of all the Opportunity Purchase Line amounts. It will always be read only. Changes from the Opportunity line impact the Opportunity header Amount field. However, since the Opportunity header is read only no header information can be edited an no information will trickle down to the opportunity purchase line amounts.
In Oracle Sales Offline you can view (read only) the Forecast Details information (Revenue and Non-Revenue) for each Opportunity Purchase Line. Click the Forecast Details button located at each Opportunity Purchase Line to view the Forecast Details form. The Forecast Details information will be downloaded from Oracle Sales for existing opportunities. Forecast Details will be generated for new Opportunities created in Oracle Sales Offline.
Revenue Credits: For opportunity lines created in Sales Offline the login user (if they are the Owner of the opportunity) will be added as a new row to the revenue frame as the Forecast Owner, and their associated Sales Group will appear in the Sales Group dropdown (if the user has two or more sales groups associated to them, the default sales group will be added).
The Default from Opportunity Owner checkbox will also be checked. All fields will be read only, and you will not be able to update or edit any Forecast Details information for opportunities created in Sales Offline.
For opportunity lines created in Sales where the login user is NOT the Owner of the opportunity, the login user will NOT be added as a new row to the revenue frame.
In this case, the Forecast Owner and their associated Sales Group will be displayed in the revenue frame. All fields will be read only, and you will not be able to update or edit any Forecast Details information.
Non Revenue Credits There will not be any Non Revenue information added for newly created opportunities in Oracle Sales Offline.
Existing Opportunity Lines with Non Revenue users:
Note: This information is only for Opportunities created in Sales where non-revenue users have been added.
The Best, Forecast, Worst fields for non-revenue users will use the same calculations used in Oracle Sales. Each opportunity product line may have one or more non revenue users associated with it.
Calculation for new non-revenue user: The Non Revenue: Best, Forecast, Worst fields will be calculated based upon the Amount field for the opportunity line and the setting of the profile option ASN: Forecast Defaulting Type. The amounts calculated for the non-revenue user’s Best, Forecast, and Worst amounts will have no impact on the Forecast fields in the opportunity header, or the Best, Forecast, Worst amounts in the opportunity lines.
Calculation for existing non-revenue users: You can change the non-revenue Best, Forecast, Worst amounts as follows:
Manual Entry – Not supported in Sales Offline.
Changing Amount field - If you change the amount field on an opportunity line, click the Recalculate button and then click the Forecast Details button, the Best, Forecast, and Worst amounts for all non-revenue users will be recalculated. This recalculation will overwrite any values currently in these three fields.
Changing Win Probability- If you change the win probability for an opportunity and click the Forecast Details, the Best, Forecast, and Worst fields for all non-revenue users will be recalculated. This recalculation will overwrite any values currently in these three fields.
In the Opportunity Details window, click Create Quote to flow the opportunity information into a new quote. A new quote can be created based on information that flows from an existing opportunity. Only purchase item rows with a specified inventory item numbers (along with it's associated quantity) are carried over to the new quote.
This information will flow from the opportunity to the new quote into a new Create Quote window:
Opportunity Name (flows to the Quote Name field)
Customer Name
Contact Name
Sales Channel
Opportunity Purchase Items (if they have specific inventory items on the purchase item line)
Sales Team
Address